Youth and Violence Project

Mansoor Moaddel, P.I.

Dr. Mansoor Moaddel is heading a large study on Youth and Political Violence in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The project is motivated by the understanding that young adulthood is the crucial formative period of the life span for formulating, the period when the individual is most vulnerable to the influences of social and political forces. The project carried out a survey of youth between ages 18 and 25 in Egypt and in Saudi Arabia in 2005. The survey questionnaire addressed a variety of issues, including attitudes about developmental idealism; attitudes toward important sociopolitical, gender, and religious issues; attitudes toward religious fundamentalism and political violence; the sources of epistemic authority–the sources of knowledge the youth use in forming opinion about important issues and deciding their educational goals and career–and the respondents’ backgrounds and social attributes.